The so-called "hooking" of rugs is an old art and many devices have been proposed over the years for facilitating same. In a more recent development of this art, there has appeared a procedure wherein a sheet of flexible base material is provided with suitable openings therethrough, as by being woven with a large mesh, wherein the base material is fed to the operator under a controllable restraint and wherein the hooking operation is performed by introduction of the desired rug materials into and through such openings in said base. This development of the art has also given rise to a large number of devices by which the base material may be held and fed to the operator as desired with the finished portion of the rug then moving to some portion which is clear of the working zone. These devices in greater or less complexity have in the past provided means for holding the base material and incrementally feeding it into a working zone as required by the operator and they have done so with greater or less degrees of convenience to the operator. However, in the operation of rug hooking, it is further desirable to provide means for holding said base substantially immovably in a zone close to the working zone and none of the prior devices of which I am aware provide this function. The need for same has been recognized in the past inasmuch as certain instructions for rug hooking have suggested placing weights, as books, on top of the base adjacent the working zone but none insofar as I am aware have provided means for such holding within the structure of the rack itself.
Accordingly, the objects and purposes of the invention include:
1. To provide a rug hooking rack for supporting and incrementally feeding a base material to a working zone which rack will be simple to make, effective in use and easily converted from a collapsed to operating condition and vice versa.
2. To provide a rug hooking rack, as aforesaid, which includes also clamp structure by which the operator may if and when he so desires hold such base material firmly against fixed means at a point adjacent the working zone whereby to improve the firmness with which a hooking operation may be performed with respect to a particular segment of such base material.
3. To provide a rug hooking device, as aforesaid, which may be expressed in either a relatively simple and portable table model and/or in a somewhat more permanent free-standing model.
4. To provide rug hooking devices, as aforesaid, which will be extremely simple in manufacturing but will be durable and capable of long and satisfactory use.
5. To provide rug hooking devices, as aforesaid, which will hold such base material firmly when the operator so desires but which may by a simple manipulation be enabled to advance such base material incrementally as desired by the operator.
6. To provide rug hooking devices, as aforesaid, which will operate easily and freely when so desired by the operator but which when in clamped condition will hold a base material firmly against any strains normally placed thereon by the rug hooking operation.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons acquainted with apparatus of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspection of the accompanying drawings.